


all we have

by RaisingCaiin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (do i need to tag for that anymore? hmmm), (mild i think but i admit i am not the best judge), Attempted Seduction, Body Horror, Creepy, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, Pseudo-Incest, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 20:39:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12240246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: On the eve of the Fëanorians' departure for Doriath, Caranthir receives a visitor.





	all we have

 

Carnistir is not much surprised when his door is pushed open, or when a flame-haired form slips through it to dart across his room.

“Ambarussa.”

His brother grins as he throws himself on his belly across the foot of Carnistir’s bed, and even though he does not speak, the gesture alone is enough to tell Carnistir that it is Pityo who has come to him this night. Telvo, when he is alone in his own hröa, slumps and does not speak. Pityo, when he has come to reside with his brother for a time, twists Telvo’s form in movements – dances and smiles and laughter, each uncanny as the next – that his twin has not performed of his own volition in many, many years.

Carnistir will never understand how none of the others have noticed. Or, at least, have not come to the same explanation.

“Pityo.” Dealing with the shade of his youngest brother is rarely the same twice, but Carnistir must try. He is the only one who can do so, after all. “Good of you to come, tonight. I was hoping to speak with you, actually.”

“Speak into the wind, then,” Pityo says in Telvo’s voice, propping Telvo’s chin up on Telvo’s hands and directing Telvo’s eyes to gaze up at Carnistir expectantly. “Sing beneath the trees, shout unto the void! We will hear Moryo. We always hear Moryo.”

It is surprisingly difficult to tell how much Pityo makes up about being dead, and how much is actual experience. “You and your fucking hyperbole, Pityo.”

Pityo titters – a decidedly odd sound coming from Telvo’s scream-torn throat. “Oh, oh, oh. How we have missed Moryo. How we always miss Moryo!”

And that, Carnistir decides, is quite enough of _that_. It’s already bad enough that Pityo chose tonight of all nights to join Telvo; worse, that he walked them both up to see Carnistir, instead of secluding Telvo’s body away somewhere – for what, Carnistir suspects but has not yet dared to try and confirm. “Something you wanted tonight, Pityo?”

“Thought Moryo wanted to talk to _us_?” Pityo whines, contorting Telvo’s disfigured face into something like a pout. “Silly Moryo. . .”

Fine, then. “Fine, then.” Why he thought he could avoid this, Carnistir will ask himself later. “Pityo. Please. Do not try and get your brother killed again, tomorrow or any day following.”

Telvo’s scarred mouth stretches, showing teeth – some filed, some cracked, some missing. Pityo may be trying for a smile, or also, he may not. “Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh _no_. How could Moryo _say_ such a thing?”

Because, Carnistir does not say, there must be some reason why Telvo showed up, unarmed and unarmored, on their flank during the Fifth Battle, just as bloody Ulfang’s Voids-damned traitors burst from the hills screaming fiery murder – when Carnistir knows that his youngest surviving brother had been bound, and confined, in the tents several miles behind their lines.

Because Telvo, in his despair – or Pityo, driving him forward – had then strode out to meet Ulfang’s screeching hills-men, and stood there, head tipped back and arms held wide, laughing and laughing.

Neither option is good. But Carnistir can only prevent the repetition of one.

Telvo’s mouth stretches wider still, though Carnistir has said nothing of these memories. Blood trickles from a crack in one of the scars about his mouth, still new enough or now stressed enough that the tension has rent it.

“Moryo, dear Moryo,” Pityo purrs, dropping Telvo’s hands and rolling Telvo’s body over to lie upon its back across Carnistir’s bed. Telvo’s head hangs down over the side; Telvo’s voice rasps. “Always looking after us. Even when we are so lonely, always watching over us!”

Telvo’s right hand is lifted to dangle over the edge of the bed, by Telvo’s head. Telvo’s voice whines in invitation as Pityo raises that hand, uses it to beckon Carnistir to join him.

Him? Them? Him?

Carnistir does not move. “That is not an answer, Pityo.”

“Ugh,” Telvo’s voice gripes, but although Pityo drops the hand, he does not turn over again. “Moryo wants a promise from us.”

“No, imp.” Carnistir most decidedly does _not_ want a promise, or at least, not a promise extracted from the depths of Pityo’s devious intelligence. Such, he has learned from harrowing past experience, is treacherously like an oath – an Oath – and oh, Pityo will treat it as one.

And Telvo, lost without his twin, will let Pityo do as he will. 

“I just want-“

Of course he can’t quite finish the thought, in either of the two iterations that first come to mind.

_You to be alive. The rest of us, to be dead. Anything that will grant us some fucking semblance of peace._

Telvo’s mouth smirks.

“For you not to goad poor Telvo so much,” Carnistir finishes, finally.

“Why?” Pityo asks, Telvo’s head still lolling dangerously over the side of Carnistir’s bed.

“You heard that we are riding out, tomorrow?” The extent of what Pityo’s shade has heard of the fucking disaster that was this day could make or break Carnistir’s ability to save Telvo’s life.

“Noooooo.” Pityo giggles with Telvo’s voice. A tear shines in the corner of Telvo’s left eye. “Where is Moryo going? Where is Moryo going?”

 

~ ~ ~

There is a Silmaril in Menegroth, Curufinwë likes to remind them.

There is a Silmaril in Menegroth, while the six surviving sons of the great Fëanor lie cowering like rats within Amon Ereb.

“If you dislike cowering like a rat, Curvo, you are more than welcome to leave the poor safety of my wretched halls and take on the might of Doriath as you please.” After nearly three decades cooped up together in and around Amon Ereb following their rout in the Fifth Battle, Carnistir suspects there will be blood shed among the brothers or their followers within another fortnight. He vows that it will not be his or Telvo’s. “But count me out.”

Curufinwë ignores him. He always does.

“That benighted Man is dead, as is Thingol’s fucking whelp.” Curufinwë probably means to sound authoritative, emphatic, when he slaps the table, but the move just makes him look ridiculous. “And their son, whatever his name is-“

“Dior Eluchil,” Makalaurë murmurs, rolling the syllables across his tongue with a bard’s distraction.

“Dior What-the-fuck-ever,” Curufinwë scoffs, “can hardly be that much of an obstacle.”

“The blood of a Maia should not be so easily discounted.” Of all of the brothers, Carnistir would have thought that Curufinwë knew this. “Plus, going by your stories over the years, the Man Beren was nine feet tall and leapt like a frog, so Eluchil may well have inherited those abilities too.”

Makalaurë laughs, Tyelkormo rumbles with amusement, and Curufinwë ignores all three of them. Telvo is silent and still, curled in on himself. Maedhros is still and silent, hunched over himself.

“So then why are we just sitting here?” Curufinwë cries, slamming his fist down against the table again. Absently, Carnistir wonders whether the pain and splinters are worth the rather lackluster dramatic effect. “Rotting away in Carnistir’s abysmal excuse for a stronghold, when we could be riding out _doing_ something?”

Rude _and_ senseless. Astonishing. “For argument’s sake, brother, what are you actually advocating?” Curufinwë’s plans and reasoning sound terribly familiar, in a manner that dawns on Carnistir only gradually – they sound like their father’s, in those dim days before Alqualondë. 

“I am advocating” – Curufinwë leans forward and enunciates each word with exaggerated deliberateness – “that we ride to Doriath. My scouts report that the Girdle is down. Patrols are scattered. Eluchil has been ignoring my letters.”

“So you’ve been sending letters, now.” Carnistir is tired, so very tired. Isn’t Maedhros the one meant to be leading them, or even, Void take them all, Makalaurë?

“And we see what that bastard has to say for himself about retaining our father’s Silmaril,” Curufinwë continues, as if Carnistir had not spoken at all.

“No.” Of-fucking-course, now is when Maedhros decides to speak, and that is all he decides to say.

“Why?” Curufinwë presses their eldest brother, snarling.

Maedhros lapses back into silence as though he had never spoken at all, and never intended to do so again.  

“Because even simply riding out to speak with Eluchil will only appear as a provocation.” So of-fucking-course the expository portion is left to Carnistir again.  

 “Hah,” Curufinwë snorts. “No, what I think you mean is ‘because Findekáno is dead, and dear Nelyo won’t stir his ass unless there’s the prospect of getting something up it.’”

Maedhros has withered, in the last several years since the Fifth Battle and the losses they suffered there.

But he has lost none of his strength, as Curufinwë learns – or, perhaps, had intended to provoke their eldest brother into proving.

So. They will ride to Menegroth.

 

~ ~ ~

Pityo does not seem to have witnessed any of this, and when pressed, seems only vaguely familiar with the geography and political standing of Doriath at all.

Carnistir is not surprised. His youngest brother died at Losgar, before any of them knew anything much about this brave new world, and has not seemed interested in the pettier aspects of their ongoing war since.

“Moryo is riding out just to talk?” Telvo’s eyes stare, unblinking.

Stars willing, it will be just to talk. But to Caranthir’s mind, from Amon Ereb to Menegroth – some weeks’ travel – is a damned long way to go, just for a diplomatic chat. “Yes, Pityo. Just to talk.” And it’s not as though his line is renowned for such skills, anyway.

“Oh. That is nice.” Pityo finally rolls Telvo’s body over, back on to its stomach, and resumes following Carnistir with Telvo’s eyes as he hangs his cloak. “Is Moryo scared?”

What kind of a question is that?

“What would I be frightened of, Pityo?” It is difficult to remove his day clothes beneath that intense gaze – Telvo’s world-weary gray eyes fueled by Pityo’s wide-eyed curiosity – but to hesitate in any way is to invite Pityo’s attention toward that hesitation instead.

“Moryo will die,” Pityo chirps in Telvo’s voice, absurdly cheery.

What?

“What?” Carnistir thinks he can be forgiven for sounding shocked, just this once.

 Neither of the twins were ever prescient.

But then again, neither of the twins were ever dead, either, and now look where they are.

“The fuck, Pityo?”

“Moryo will die,” Pityo repeats, Telvo’s voice rising in mockery of a soothing sing-song. “Moryo will die, and Curvo will die, and Tyelko will die, and-“

“Enough.” The shock, at least, has replaced the discomfort, and Carnistir is down to his breeches, the last of his garments, before he remembers that he should be too uncomfortable to go even this far beneath Telvo’s eyes and Pityo’s gaze. But it is too late now, anyway: Pityo’s concentration pinches Telvo’s brow.

So Carnistir simply ignores the weight of that twin gaze as he strides back across the chamber to his bed. Sleeping in worn breeches for a night never killed an Elda yet, but even so – this is _his_ bed, dammit. The walk affords him just enough time to steel himself into reaching down to touch the twins – as he sits, he shoves lightly at Telvo’s shoulder as if trying to get him to move.

Pityo’s delight at actually being touched does not quite translate as intended through Telvo’s hoarse laughter.

“Off with you, children,” Carnistir grumbles, ignoring both the chill that trickles down his spine at the sound, and the fact that none of them have been children in a very, very long time. “I told you, we are riding out tomorrow.”

“Moryo sleeps, then,” Telvo’s throat croons. Telvo’s elbows pull his torso closer to Carnistir rather than farther away.

“I would make the attempt with all my heart, anyway.” Carnistir stands and walks around to the head of the bed, turning down the top layer before Pityo can compel Telvo’s body any closer.

“We can help Moryo sleep well,” Telvo’s voice promises. “We can, we can. . .”

Carnistir wishes he were more surprised by the offer, but Pityo has obviously been working toward this for a long time.

As long as he has been coming to Telvo? As long as he has been dead? Carnistir has no way of knowing.  

“No, Pityo.” It is surprisingly easy to be gentle with him, Carnistir thinks, for all that everything about this scenario should horrify him. They should not have come east, the twins – they were too young, too trusting, and now they are sundered, perhaps forever, by fire and fury and worse.

It is easy to permit them their smaller foibles, in the wake of all that they have suffered, together and apart.

“But no one else will have us,” Telvo’s tongue and Pityo’s words tell him. “ ‘Fey,’ said the first we asked, and ‘mad,’ and ‘touched.’ Then he said we were ugly, so we ripped out his tongue for lying, and now no one will even talk to us.”

There is an exhale of air as Telvo’s lungs are emptied with emphatic force, and timed with this attempt at a sigh, Pityo rolls Telvo’s body over again so that the twins are laid out upon Telvo’s back once more. And, no sooner has that motion been completed, then Pityo sends Telvo’s body into an elaborate roll.

If it is meant to be seductive – and it probably is – then it fails miserably. The disjuncture between the intent of the spirit compelling Telvo’s frame and the torpor of the spirit that _should_ be compelling it is too great: Telvo’s lean body jerks up and down in truncated segments, its torso heaving and then falling still in a truncated movement before the belly follows in its own distinct effort, then the abdomen, the knees, the lower legs.

The result is not the smooth rippling stretch of a lover persuading his admirer to explore his body. Instead, Telvo’s body spasms as though Telvo is dying.

Pity, Carnistir finds, is strong enough that he need not even steel himself to touch this time. He can place his hand upon Telvo’s sunken belly, spanning the jut of his ribs beneath a thin shirt, with only the faintest of tremors.

The body beneath his hands trembles at his touch, and Carnistir cannot tell whether its softest of mewls has been uttered by Pityo or Telvo.

 “Moryo, Moryo, please, _please_!”

“No,” Carnistir repeats, softly, and before he can think better of it, he leans down to press a kiss to Telvo’s scabbed forehead.

A strong hand scrabbles at the back of his head – Pityo, likely, desperate to prolong the torture of the touch he has so missed – but Carnistir feels the questing fingers just in time to try and pull away before he can be forced lower, longer, by his dead brother’s unnatural strength.

Pityo lets him go, dropping Telvo’s hand in concession to Carnistir’s withdrawal, and – void, Carnistir thinks, he should reward the younger twin for that restraint and acknowledgement, should he not?

He presses his hand to the side of Telvo’s face, ignoring the tears that have begun to gather and drip and fall from its eyes – almost certainly Telvo’s doing.

And he suppresses a shiver as Telvo’s face – almost certainly Pityo’s doing – turns and nuzzles further into his grip.

But Carnistir lets him – lets _them_ – go on, knowing that this will be all Pityo can have.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy first of Halloween, all. . .


End file.
